GEORGIA GIRL

for my mother
In a photo jaundiced with age, you kneel
on a sidewalk somewhere in time and space,
when I was in the time and space
in the place before we're born. Daddy's girl,
doomed daughter, your distant look,
chin in hand, a shawl around your shoulders
against morning chill. It's your girlfriend, not you,
coaxing baby steps beside his child's chair
from your small son, all eyes on him,
and not on you, Beauty. Is this the happenstance
you thought would follow heady romance
with the dandy beside you--before me, before
your first-born's unsteady steps? A younger you
in summer dress, newly married, parasol high
against a Georgia sun, "pretty feet" primly placed
the way it's taught at finishing school,
your husband's eyes on you, and no one else
in the whole world would do?
Top of the World, Girl! before the word bi-
polar could be spoken in broad daylight,
and applied to you. Your dapper father, tie-d
and suit-ed, as an all-important man should,
a gray fedora'd Little Caesar, Edward G,
your triggerman who called all the shots.
You steadied yourself on him, holding on,
holding on. Was it cold that day on a Georgia side-
walk, four of you watching Baby walk? If
you had only known so soon to step
out of history, all of you, leaving the tintype,
the ghost who held the camera,
all of you, Ghosts.